Camera portability is important to many devices including mobile devices such as a smartphone or a tablet. Camera sensor size, lens optics, and light filters are directly related to the quality of the image the camera is capable of capturing. Miniaturization of devices containing cameras often necessitates utilizing smaller cameras. In reducing the size of camera's components, the quality of the image captured by the camera may be degraded. For example, for a short z-height compact camera module with a relatively large field of view may have difficulty capturing a sharp image. This may be particularly noticeable at the periphery of the field of view relative to the center of the field. Additional lenses can be added to the lens assembly of the camera module to improve the modulation transfer function (“MTF”); however, the additional lenses may increase the z-height of the camera module thereby making it more obtrusive for portable devices.
Wafer level lenses utilize replication technology for all lens elements. The lens elements are replicated on each wafer glass. The replicated lens elements can be stacked on top of one another to form an entire lens assembly. However, these lenses typically have poorer sharpness due to limitations on the materials that can be used to generate the lenses and/or the assembly process.